A's still looking for investors at high valuation in Las Vegas

Jason Burke | Oct 24, 2024

Jul 19, 2023; Oakland, California, USA; A sign reads Doris get ur kid in reference to Doris Fisher, mother of Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher, during the ninth inning against the Boston Red Sox at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images / Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images

Yesterday, the New York Post published an "exclusive" report stating that the Oakland A's are shopping a $500 million stake in the franchise for a minority 25% share of the team. That would put the valuation of the franchise of the team at $2 billion. First things first, this was already reported by the L.A. Times last November, so the shopping and the valuation are not new news.

According to Forbes, the A's are valued at $1.2 billion, and it's just tough to see an investor buying in at that valuation, when, in order to get to the $2 billion valuation, a ballpark needs to be built, and it sure looks as though this $500 million investment from someone is a key cog to making that happen.

It's also worth noting that the Baltimore Orioles sold for $1.725 billion, complete with a beloved ballpark, a team on the rise, a solid farm system, and a TV network attached to them. The A's may or may not even have fans at the moment, and the goal is to move to the league's smallest media market, so what exactly is the selling point?

Even if Fisher were able to reel in a sucker--er, investor--at the $2 billion valuation, the financials of the Las Vegas plan just don't seem to add up. The A's would need to sell out nearly every game for 30 years to make the numbers work, and that is just not feasible for any team. Why would someone come on as a minority investor to this franchise when the guy calling the shots has been declared the worst owner in professional sports by numerous outlets, and it seems pretty clear that the investor's money would be what gets the ballpark built in the first place?

The one person that could even potentially value the A's at $2 billion isn't in Las Vegas, and isn't interested in becoming a minority shareholder in the franchise. That person would be Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob. It has been reported that he has a standing offer to buy the A's from John Fisher, though what that price is set at is unknown. If that price is close to $2 billion, it would be have to be tantalizing for Fisher to get the post-ballpark valuation as a sale price without having to build the actual ballpark first.

The reasoning here is simple: Oakland is the one place that has cared even a little where the team ends up. Lacob is the visionary Fisher thinks he is. Obviously he is not without fault, since he did move the Warriors across the bridge to San Francisco, but they already have a baseball team so that wouldn't happen again. Buying the A's at whatever the price ended up being would present as a sort of peace offering to the city.

The group that Fisher hired back in April to help him find an investor for $500 million in exchange for a stake in the team, Galatioto Sports Partners, also just so happens to be the group that helped Joe Lacob to negotiate the sale of the Golden State Warriors when he bought the team in 2010.

Obviously this is a bit of hopium, and there has been no reporting that backs this up, but the reason it makes sense is because all of a sudden these past two weeks there has been a lot of A's news all of a sudden. Last week it was Steve Hill repeating over and over that Fisher "has the resources" to pay for the ballpark. Which, again, does not mean that he'll use those resources.

Last week Bally's also dropped some renderings that nobody asked for, and then earlier this week said that they weren't real renderings.

Something is going on with this Las Vegas deal, and it sure doesn't appear that it's smooth sailing at this point. What if the re-report of the A's valuation was a negotiation tactic done by Fisher/MLB for someone attempting to actually buy the team behind the scenes? It's not too often that the A's end up in the NY Post, which could mean that MLB was involved in this report getting out there.

Too many people are reassuring the public that everything is just fine for everything to be just fine. This feels more like a last ditch effort to get the funding lined up before either Fisher digs into his own pockets for the first time, or finally decides to sell the team.

There aren't many other ways for this to end.